aetiology

• etiology (US, Canada)
• ætiology (obsolete)

From Latin aetiologia, from Ancient Greek αἰτιολογία (aitiología), from αἰτία (aitía, “cause”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /iːtɪˈɒlədʒi/
• (US) IPA^(key): /itiˈɑlədʒi/

aetiology (countable and uncountable, plural aetiologies)

1. The establishment of a cause, origin, or reason for something.
   • 1999, Joyce Crick, translating Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, I.c:

     I do not know where the idea first arose of enlisting internal (subjective) excitations of the sensory organs as well as external sensory stimuli; but it is in fact done in all the more recent accounts of the aetiology of dreams [transl. Traumätiologie].

2. The study of causes or causation.
3. (medicine) The study or investigation of the causes of disease; a scientific explanation for the origin of a disease.

• Not to be confused with etymology.